1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the invention relate to the organization of data for visualization, such as visualization of data in the form of charts.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Converting one or more sets of data into a visualization that adequately represents such data can be a challenging and difficult task even for experienced data analysts. For example, there are a significantly large number and variety of different types of parameters for an analyst to select from to present data in the form of a chart including, without limitation, chart dimensionality (e.g., a one dimensional chart, a two dimensional chart, a three dimensional chart, etc., with the further decision of which data values to map to which dimensions), types of charts (e.g., line charts, point charts, area charts, bar charts, pie charts, etc.), and how to map data to a particular chart (e.g., providing different line widths, dashed patterns, glyph shapes, colors, area fills, border patterns, etc.). The challenges become even more complex when faceting (also referred to as paneling or trellis) is utilized. For faceting, any number of variables can be used to create groups of charts in a table-like fashion. In a simple example of faceting, pie charts might be generated to show what proportion of a given population has certain income levels, with the chart being faceted by factors such as gender and age to produce a table of pie charts.
When there are only two or three variables in the data to display, there are a manageable number of visualization choices for the data. However, the possible choices increase exponentially with the addition of further variables to the data.
While certain visualization features for data (e.g., providing good color scales, suitable sizes, patterns, angles, etc.) are known, it becomes very difficult to manually construct decent charts for multivariate data that are both aesthetically pleasing and informative.